Inside North Korea; An Amazing Television Documentary

Eye-opening Documentary on North Korean Life Provides Lessons for
Christians

How a much-adored 'God-King' enslaves a sincere but ignorant people...

A quite amazing television programme is currently 'doing the rounds' on
cable television. I viewed it on the National Geographic Channel, in
fact I have now watched it twice within about eight months. If you get the
chance to view it, drop everything else you were thinking of doing and just
sit and watch it!

The programme is called Explorer: Inside North Korea and -
despite the unpromising title - there is great food for thought for
Christians in this production. Lisa Ling gives viewers a rare glimpse of
North Korea and its absolute dictator Kim Jong II, who is known as the
"Dear Leader" and who rules the country as a god-king. The programme
follows the work of Dr. Ruit, the famed Nepalese eye surgeon. Dr.
Ruit’s outstanding goal is to offer eye surgery to patients in poor
countries who have gone blind because of cataracts; these cataracts would be
considered eminently operable in the West but many poor countries cannot
afford such operations on a large scale. The good doctor entered North Korea
with the plan to perform over 1,000 such eye operations in just a few days.
North Korea often refuses permission for such humanitarian missions because
of not wanting to give the impression that its people lack anything but -
amazingly - they did give Dr. Ruit and his team full permission to carry out
these operations.

American TV reporter Lisa Ling (of helpful oriental appearance) planned to
go into the secretive North Korean state undercover by posing as part of the medical
team.

The North Koreans only gave permission for filming at the eye hospital,
and there are some astonishing scenes of that in the final part of the
programme - more on that later in this article - but through the use of
hidden cameras (highly risky indeed!) much else is filmed including an
interview with a typical family of this communist country. Official
permission was granted for this interview - but not for the hidden camera!
This hour-long film also covers the story of the only North Korean border
guard to have ever escaped across the 'demilitarised zone' which lies between
the two Korean states. It is considered far easier to escape into China but
this man needed to get out quickly. Unfortunately his friend was electrocuted
by live wire in the same attempt. The escapee's family have almost certainly
been imprisoned (or worse) as retribution for their son's escape and this is
normal policy in a land of sinister concentration camps, camps in which to
enter is almost certainly never to leave. It is no secret that North Korean
camp guards are taught never to regard captives as human. And
this is the state which now apparently has nuclear weapons!

The North Korean government preaches a continual propaganda message
of hatred towards foreigners but especially westerners.

So, before returning to the eye operations scenario, who is this
charismatic Korean communist leader who is plainly worshipped as a god?
Well, Kim Jong-il (also sometimes
written as Kim Jong Il) is believed to have been born in 1941 in the Soviet
Union, although official biographies state his birth date and place as 1942,
Baekdu Mountain, "Japanese Korea." He is absolute leader of the Democratic
People's Republic of Korea. He is Chairman of the National Defense
Commission, Supreme Commander of the Korean People's Army, and General
Secretary of the Workers' Party of Korea (the ruling party since 1948). He
succeeded his father Kim Il-sung, founder of North Korea, who died in 1994,
and commands the 5th largest standing army in the world.

Kim - like many such despotic leaders of the past and present - lives in
luxury amidst the numerous malnourished of his land. There are some
incredible contradictions in this land; for one, how an officially atheistic
state can give religious reverence to a god-king. We should remind ourselves that
Christians have
been executed in North Korea in the recent past and hatred of Americans has
been successfully indoctrinated in the population. In fact, hatred of all
foreigners - not just Americans - has been official policy for at least 45
years. The population are taught that they themselves are the only people of
quality in the entire world. This has been taught for so long that the people
seem to believe it without question.

Dr Sanduk Ruit of Nepal, the famed eye surgeon.

North Korea has also been going through one of the most hushed-up famines
of all time. As NK Missions reports,

'An estimated 2-5 million people (out of 22 million) have died in a
devastating famine in North Korea since it began in the mid-1990s. Perhaps
the greatest human catastrophe of our generation has claimed more lives than
the famines in Ethiopia and Somalia combined, yet many are unaware of this
ongoing disaster. In an Investigative Report conducted a few years ago, a
group of short-term missionaries surveyed the weightiness of the situation
and found these morbid estimates strikingly true. They reported:

"North Korean refugees we talked to said that at the height of the
famine in 1997, there weren't enough coffins for all the dead. Trucks drove
through the villages every morning to pick up scores of dead bodies on the
streets. Perhaps most disturbing, every refugee we talked to had stories of
people eating others in their villages.

The North Korean government hasn't released official numbers, but the
estimated number of citizens who have died of starvation since 1995 is
staggering. Research from independent groups places the death toll at 3
million...' (source:
http://www.nkmissions.com/nk_news_nkmissoverview.php?mid=menu3).

Religious Ecstasy Directed Toward the "Great Leader"

But now to the final part of this film. Viewers are shown the results when
bandaged eyes are uncovered after the multiple cataract operations. There is joy and
pandemonium in the huge hall and everybody makes for the huge pictures of Kim
and his father displayed prominently on the wall loudly giving them thanks
for receiving their sight! Apparently nobody attempted to thank Dr. Rui or
his team but most rushed to express adoration toward their 'god-king' and
'Great Leader.' Many of these people also held out, or raised, their
arms in a plain gesture of religious adoration. Quite a few fell on their
knees before the massive portraits apparently feeling unworthy to even lift
their eyes towards their god-king. One old lady (we are told by translation)
yells, "Oh great leader now you have given me sight I am going to work so
much harder for you in the salt mine!"

This very plain example of idol-worship was, for me, very revealing to discover in an
officially atheistic nation. The ordinary people of North Korea people have no knowledge of the true God, or
of Jesus Christ because this knowledge has been deliberately concealed from them as an
act of state policy - yet an innate need to express spiritual devotion
was very plain to observe in the eye hospital.

As G.K Chesterton once so famously noted,

'If people stop believing in God, the danger is not that they will
believe in nothing but that they will believe in almost anything!'

The communists were never slow to borrow imagery from religion. Here a young Mao is made to appear as a Moses-like figure. Moses received the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai, and Mao is depicted in a strikingly similar manner!

The people of North Korea bow in adoration before a far lesser 'god' - yet
I was impressed by their loyal devotion, even where the people are denied so
much. Is there a lesson here for affluent westerners who have so much yet
appear to continously grumble and complain?

This all made me realise how privileged one is to live in a time and place
where one can learn of Almighty God and the Lord Jesus Christ through the
pages of the Holy Bible. Christians do not have to be deceived by false
leaders, even so-called 'god-kings.'

Glory and praise indeed to the Highest God who is truly the King - not of
a tiny backward nation which has been fed lies for over half a century - but
of all the world!

'For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given; and the
government shall be upon his shoulder; and his name shall be called
Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of
Peace.

Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end,
upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish
it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of
the LORD of hosts will perform this.' (Isaiah 9:6-7).